Darjeeling, Aug. 14: Darjeeling municipality has started visiting each and every household in town to collect property tax, instead of waiting for residents to come to its office and pay up, with an eye on augmenting revenue.

The drive named, Municipality Service at Your Doorstep, started a couple of days back with youths appointed by the civic body visiting houses in wards 1 and 17.

The civic body has appointed 32 youths on a contractual basis for each of the 32 wards to collect tax and compile data on the total number of houses in town.

Subhomoy Chatterjee, commissioner in-charge of the tax department at the civic body, said: “There are 9,996 registered holdings (houses) under Darjeeling municipality. Only around 3,500 pay the yearly tax on a regular basis. We are supposed to collect around Rs 2.5 crore as property tax but our collection is only about Rs 1.3 crore annually.”

He said there were around 80,000 houses in the municipality area. “Although many properties might not be registered, the municipality is providing facilities, in terms of clearing garbage and other services, to them,” said Chatterjee. “Many buildings that have come up on forest, PWD or vested land, have not been registered. During the drive, data on houses would also be collected.”

Each of the 32 youths, who have been appointed for a monthly reimbursement of Rs 2,000 each, would visit every household in town. “They will carry a receipt book and if owners are willing to pay tax on the spot, they can do so,” said Chatterjee.

The youths would have identity cards and authorisation letters issued by the municipality and they will note down details about mutation deeds, water connection, electricity connection and other information.

One can also pay tax at the municipality office.

Sources said the civic body could collect about Rs 6 crore a year if all taxes were paid.

Property tax is levied at Rs 2.50 per square feet per annum. “It is the minimum rate. The rate fluctuates depending on the quality of construction,” said Chatterjee.

Civic authorities said the total annual expenditure on salaries, wages for daily workers, gratuity and a portion of pension was Rs 1.02 crore.

“We have to pay 20 per cent of the salaries (the rest is paid by the state) of 456 permanent employees. We do not get any help to pay the 193 daily workers who get Rs 75 a day,” said a municipality official.

The municipality also generates revenue from water tax, zamindary department, trade license and mutation fee.

MSYD Taxman to come a-knocking at defaulters’ doors

Darjeeling, 14 Aug 2014: With revenue by way of taxes getting hard to come by, the Darjeeling municipality has come up with an innovative idea of exacting dues from defaulters.

The modus operandi is simple: “If they don’t come, we go to their doors instead”. This flagship initiative is aptly named Municipality Service at Your Doorstep (MSYD).

Darjeeling municipality chairman Amar Singh Rai, the brains behind the idea, said, “The municipality is an autonomous body and has to raise revenues on its own. It is a fact that in Darjeeling, people frequently default in paying their taxes. Property tax is a huge income generating avenue. I felt that if property owners do not come to us to pay their taxes, then why not we go to them instead?”

The MSYD programme has recruited several individuals for making door-to-door visits in wards to identify and collect details of propertied people who are defaulting in paying their taxes.

“We have selected unemployed but educated youths from various wards and trained them for two to three months. We made them aware and educated them about the types of taxes and how to extract details from property owners,” explained Rai.

The municipality chairman also said the campaign has already been started in two wards. “We have started the exercise in two wards and are getting good response so far. In fact, we have made arrangements for paying taxes on the spot, at the time when our young recruits visit their houses,” said Rai.

He added, “We have also taken into account people’s apprehension of unknown individuals appearing at their doorsteps and seeking details. To solve this problem, we have issued identity cards and a letter of authority issued by the civic body.”

Municipal records show there are more than 80,000 people within the municipality area who own property in the form of houses, flats or shops. However, only 9,996 have had their property registered with the civic body. Moreover, only 35 per cent of these people are actually paying their taxes on a regular basis.

“If all the registered owners pay their due taxes, we stand to collect Rs2.5 crore on a yearly basis. Sadly, this is not so at the present. We generate revenues to the tune of only Rs1.3 crore as property tax,” said Rai.

Working hours for the field visit recruits have been set from 8am to 10am and 4pm to 6pm in the evening. “We want to reach out to the maximum number of people and so have fixed the time for the visits accordingly as these are the timings when people are usually expected to be at home,” said the municipality chairman.

Another reason for the new initiative, according to Rai, is to ensure funds from the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) are not affected.

“The municipality receives funds from the SUDA for utilisation for various projects within the areas in town. However, the SUDA has set conditions that in order to receive funds from it, the civic body must generate revenue on its own as well,” said Rai.

The SUDA is one of the funding agencies for various development programmes that are undertaken by the state government.

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